The Truth Hurts Podcast: Page 8
You asked politely for somebody to move, and instead of an answer you got "you're hysterical." There's a moment when you're still speaking quietly and politely, and somebody decides anyway that your reaction is the problem, not his behavior. The way Gili Man Wolner sees it, anger is holding a boundary without going outside yourself, while aggression is what creates the distance, and it's exactly the confusion between the two that gets women taken for hysterical when all they're doing is saying no. She invites you to look again at the moment when strangers on the sidelines see what took you a while to understand.
Read the episode notes: Seed vs. Egg Consciousness | The Truth Hurts, Episode 40
You're on the doorstep of 40 and feeling that something has to change now, as if time has run out. Gili says this isn't only a subjective feeling. This is the age with the highest suicide rate, but also with the highest percentage of people who start running marathons, the same intensity going in two completely opposite directions. In psychology they call it the age of understanding, and the way she sees it, that is exactly the moment when your eyes open and you see life differently. What helps you get through it, she says, is not spending that power on worry but aiming it at believing and creating, and that starts with the way you talk to yourself in the morning.
Read the episode notes: 2023 In, 2024 Out: What Will You Stop? What Will You Start? | The Truth Hurts, Episode 39
There's a feeling a lot of people carry around: that no matter how much you get, something is always still missing. Gili Man Wolner suggests looking at it from a different angle. The will to receive is the only vessel that was created in us, and the constant sense of lack that we all know comes from there. The bigger the lack, the bigger the pleasure in receiving, but receiving that comes with no contribution at all on our part can leave a feeling of shame behind, even when you can't put your finger on it.
Read the episode notes: What Are We Here For? | The Truth Hurts, Episode 38
You live inside laws that look self-evident to you. An object falls, a hand gets burned in fire, a seed turns into wheat. And that's exactly what makes you forget that there's something much deeper here, hiding underneath everything you see and touch every day. The way Gili sees it, our reality is only the result of a long chain whose roots are completely hidden from us, and other realities we know nothing about could exist alongside it. What is reality? That's no small question. Asking it is a tool that can teach you to doubt what looks obvious.
Read the episode notes: Reality Check: What Is Reality Made Of? | The Truth Hurts, Episode 37
In this episode, Gili and Tal celebrate Hanukkah, and the way Gili sees it, the holiday carries a special meaning this year, following the national awakening since October 7. Gili presents Hanukkah, as the Holy Ari wrote about it, as an event of cosmic significance and not just a historical story about the war between the Greeks and the Maccabees, a war that in her view symbolizes the constant struggle between the soul and the false part of us that chases material things and instant gratification. She talks about what she describes as the psychological warfare being waged against the Jewish people since the crisis, and about her view that unity was the secret of the Maccabees' victory. The episode also includes practical tips for lighting the candles and an explanation, according to the approach she presents, of the inner meaning of the oil and the candle.
Read the episode notes: Hanukkah: Miracles and Wonders | The Truth Hurts, Episode 36
Reality right now presses in from every direction: a threat from the north, a threat from the south, and the feeling that close to half the world is against us, until even the dream of getting out and going abroad stops being any comfort. Gili argues that it's exactly this pressure that has brought up a conversation that was marginal for years: who we are, as Jews and as Israelis. From there she moves to a question that has been with us for much longer. Do we have free choice, or, as she sees it, is our reality a direct product of our own deepest wants, even when that sounds completely out there?
Read the episode notes: Free Will: Where Choice Begins | Episode 35
You know when you gave in for the first time, and you also know that it wasn't the last. That's how it works: one small compromise becomes the normal thing, and then the bar drops a little more, and a little more, until one day you look in the mirror and don't recognize the person you see there. Gili compares it to a frog in water that heats up slowly. It doesn't jump out, because it just can't feel the moment it turned dangerous. The solution she offers is the opposite: don't get used to it. Raise the bar right when things get hard.
Read the episode notes: You Can Get Used to Anything | The Truth Hurts, Episode 34
You think the thoughts you have are yours, but a lot of them reached you before you ever had a chance to choose. Gili says that whatever you believe becomes your truth, even when it's a limiting belief that was set in childhood and has never been checked since. This isn't only theory. Behind money, relationships, health or loneliness, there is usually that same old belief, still writing the story. The question isn't whether you can change it. The question is whether you're willing to look again at what is actually true for you.
Read the episode notes: Finding Everyday Miracles in Kislev | The Truth Hurts, Episode 33
If you've ever felt that you're not "Jewish enough," because you don't keep the commandments, because you don't go to synagogue, because somebody else looks more religious than you do, this is exactly the place to start. Gili says that Jewish law itself rules that anyone murdered for being a Jew is holy, no matter how much they kept in their lifetime, and that includes the holy ones of the Holocaust. From there she doesn't hesitate to criticize leaders who won't take responsibility, and to tie it to the crisis of trust that COVID exposed. Her conclusion: you can't wait for somebody on the outside to tell you what's right. You have to turn inward.
Read the episode notes: Unity vs. Division | The Truth Hurts, Episode 32
That moment when your mind jumps straight to the worst possible scenario? That's probably fear talking, not intuition. Gili looks at fear and love as two opposing forces, like a north pole and a south pole, shaping our thoughts and our feelings all the time. The way she sees it, most people run on fear without noticing: fear of failing, fear of letting someone down, and, deepest of all, the fear of not being good enough. She shows that even in the hardest moment, you can still choose to act out of love instead of fear.
Read the episode notes: When Fear Takes Over: Choosing Love | The Truth Hurts, Episode 31